CRISPR Challenges – Imaging

May 25, 2016Musings, Papers

By Jacob Corn

This post is the first in a new, ongoing series: what are big challenges for CRISPR-based technologies, what progress have we made so far, and what might we look forward to in the near future? I’ll keep posting in this series on an irregular basis, so stay tuned for your favorite topic. These posts aren’t meant to belittle any of the amazing advances made so far in these various sub-fields, but to look ahead to all the good things on the horizon. I’m certain these issues are front and center in the minds of people working in these fields, and this series of posts is aimed to bring casual readers up to speed with what’s going to be hot.

First up is CRISPR imaging, in which Casproteins are used to visualize some cellular component in either fixed or live cells. This is a hugely exciting area. 3C/4C/Hi-C/XYZ-C technologies give great insight into the proximity of two loci averaged over large numbers of cells at a given time point. But what happens in each individual cell? Or in real time? We already know that location matters, but we’re just scratching the surface on what, when, how, or why.

Someone’s going to crack the sensitivity problem, allowing people to watch genomic loci in living cells in real time. Will we learn how intergenic variants alter nuclear organization to induce disease? Will we see noncoding RNAs interacting with target mRNAs during development? With applications this big, I know many people are working on the problem and I’m sure there will be some big developments soon.